I Share Because I Care. Really.

Today I had the experience that every woman looks forward to each year - the annual visit to the crotchologist. Who doesn’t love the awkward questions about your crotch’s history, the extended dance remix breast exam, and getting pried like open a clam at a raw bar for the always-fun cervical scraping? Oh, and all under the soothing glare of stadium lighting focused solely your no-no places. Fortunately, my visit to the crotchologist was uneventful, as usual, and for all the right reasons. I’m sure you’re all thrilled that I’ve shared this information with you. You can sleep better now. I have to admit that living so close to Washington Blvd had me worried that I’d caught something by proxy though.

While driving to my appointment today, I started thinking about crotches and STDs and all the things that can go wrong without even experiencing any symptoms. My stream of consciousness thoughts about cooter cooties were momentarily interrupted so I could roll down my window to holla at my favorite Washington Blvd hooker as I drove by. I’ll get back to the STD thing, but I have to digress for a moment…

Way back near the turn of the century, I dated a foxy South America woman who also happened to be an OB/GYN. Let’s just say that “take everything off except your socks” and “you’re going to feel a little pressure” took on entirely different meanings for me (although I never did get used to the latex gloves thing). I always used to ask the OB/GYN how my lady parts and lady plumbing rated compared to her patients. She would never tell me anything and I was never 100% sure if she was just being professional or just being polite. I leaned toward her being professional, since she probably would not have been doing the unholy things we were doing had something been wrong with my fun box. One morning, while basking in the afterglow of unnatural carnal relations, I begged her to tell me just one clinical thing about my stuff. She finally relented and said, “You’re bladder is full. I think you probably have to pee.”

Back to the STDs…

One of the interesting perks of having dated a physician was getting to see the pictures in the medical textbooks. If you have an empty stomach and are in a particularly self-loathing mood, google search pictures of vaginal herpes or vaginal warts. I dare you. I’ve often wondered why these kinds of pictures aren’t featured in the safe sex ads on Baltimore’s billboards and MTA buses. We’ve all seen the following safe sex ads on billboards and buses around town: “Sex can wait. Your future can’t.” “Marriage works.” “Get tested.” “Virgin: It’s not a dirty word.” Whoever puts these ads up assumes that everyone can read and that’s not an assumption you want to make in a city like Baltimore. Let’s assume you can’t read and what you’ll see are good looking people who look healthy enough to have consequence-free sex with. I think these ads send a lot of mixed signals to people, don’t you? Seeing pictures of infected no-no parts does not require functional literacy to know what you’re looking at. They are universal for “Call the cabulance and get to the clinic immediately.”

Imagine you are driving down Pratt Street and you are stuck next to an MTA bus with a bus-sized safe sex ad of a vagina riddled with herpes and warts - a vagina so big that you are afraid it will swallow you and your car whole. I know it doesn’t sound possible, but it’s perhaps even more frightening that seeing Carrie Bradshaw roll by on the side of a bus. If you are a woman, you’ll probably make a frantic call to your crotchologist to get tested for everything possible. If you are a man, maybe it will make you so terrified that you’ll commit to a monastic lifestyle and vow never to dip your wick anywhere ever again. And who knows…maybe someone will look at the Mothra-like vaginas and say, “Oh yeeyah. I got them same sonsabitches on my cooter” and get it checked out. Maybe. I just don’t think the safe sex ads of attractive people are doing much good in preventing STDs. If anything, they are providing fodder for more medical textbook pictures and not in a good way.

This has been your roundabout PSA from Pigtown.